


bless your body, bless your soul

by livtontea



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Human Dolores (Umbrella Academy), No Incest, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Self-Indulgent, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-22
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2020-10-26 02:24:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20734715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livtontea/pseuds/livtontea
Summary: “I’m Dolores.”Her hand is right between them, palm open, fingers spread. Five looks at it, looks at the creases and callouses and rips covering the skin of her palm. He takes it.





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> Dolores you say? You mean my wife? My queen? Her? This absolute legend?
> 
> So I may have fallen a little bit in love with her, yeah. [Here's her human tag on my tumblr for context.](https://seven-misfits.tumblr.com/tagged/real-girl-dolores) (And if you want it, [the all-encompassing Dolores tag.](https://seven-misfits.tumblr.com/search/dolores))
> 
> I might not finish this, but I honestly hope I do because I need some of that sweet sweet serotonin, and this is it.
> 
> Title from [The World We Live In by The Killers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EqBVO0eYOI)

Five finds her standing above an overturned car, looking down at the remains of a person strapped into the driver’s seat. He almost shouts as his eyes land on her for the first time. She’s wearing an aviator jacket, her hair shaved close to her scalp. The girl doesn’t look at him, pays no attention to where he’s standing.

He takes a step closer. The girl looks about his age, somewhere around sixteen or seventeen. He takes another step. Slow, like he’s expecting her to fade from view like all of his other hallucinations.

His third step leads to a rock shifting under his feet, making a noise as it falls away from the pile of pebbles it was on. The girl stiffens. She turns and looks at Five. Her eyes are grey, almost blue.

She blinks. Steps down from the boulder she was on before. Five doesn’t move. He thinks he’s holding his breath, waiting for her to disappear.

She doesn’t. She walks to him, almost running, and puts two hands on his shoulders. She squeezes. Her warm fingers dig into Five’s flesh through his shirt. He inhales, sharp and fast. His hallucinations can’t touch him.

“You’re real,” is what falls out of his mouth. “You’re…”

“So are you,” she says. “You’re real too.”

He tries to say something else, but his throat is already tight and choked up. Her eyes are watering. Five doesn’t think either of them has touched another person in years.

“You’re real. You’re- What’s your name? You have a name, right?” Her hands are still tight around his shoulders. Five reaches up with one, puts his hand over her slightly bigger one. He doesn’t squeeze, just lets it lay there and soak in her warmth. He feels like he’s met her before. Like they’re two old friends reuniting after an eternity apart.

“Five.”

“What?” She looks like she wants to step back. Five clears his throat.

“Five. That’s my name. Number Five.”

“Number Five?” She seems skeptical. Does she think he’s lying to her? Why would he lie? Why would he lie to her when he’s the only one left?

Did she spend as long as him thinking that there was nobody else except for her?

Five nods.

She squints at him, searching his face for traces of a lie. When she finds none, her shoulders relax. She lets go of one of his shoulders. His hand is still on hers.

“I’m Dolores.”

Her hand is right between them, palm open, fingers spread. Five looks at it, looks at the creases and callouses and rips covering the skin of her palm. He takes it.

None of them say a thing. Five takes the time to examine her features more thoroughly than before. Dolores has a straight nose and a yellow hue to her skin, and Five can’t tell if that’s natural or a side-effect of living how they do. Surviving.

Her hair is shaved, but it’s growing out a bit, slightly soft on her head. Her jacket has pins on it, two with stripes of color and one with a yellow crown on a white background.

Dolores sneezes.

“Sorry,” she says, rubbing her nose. “The ash really isn’t good for me.”

Five doesn’t know what to say, so what he decides on is, “Are you asthmatic?”

Dolores looks at him in confusion for a split second, then laughs. “No, no way. I’d be dead a long while ago if I was. I just sneeze easily.”

“Oh. That’s- That’s good.”

She suddenly looks much more serious than she did a second ago. She sighs, pursing her lips a little bit. “Yeah. It is.”

Five takes his hand off of hers, and she takes her hand off of his shoulder. He notes that the hand he was holding was much harder than the other. They stand facing each other, each one looking at the first living person they’ve seen in years.

Five licks his lips. They’re dry. His mouth is filled with the taste of ash.

“Do you,” he says, “Do you want to see where I live?”

She raises an eyebrow. “You live somewhere?”

“Well, no, but. It’s where all of my things are.”

She smiles again. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s go. Show me.”

He leads her to the half-destroyed department store he’s been occupying for the past couple of months. Climbing over the boulder that blocks what used to be the doorway, they find themselves in a cave of sorts. Burned clothing is piled near the walls, bits of miscellaneous material shoved away for later.

Dolores looks around. She steps toward a wall, puts her hand on it. She turns back to Five.

“I like it,” she says. “Feels homey.”

Five has to snort at that, and so does Dolores. There’s absolutely nothing homey about their life anymore.

“Do you want to stick together?” she asks, remains of a smile still on her face. Five freezes, the air and ash sticking to the walls of his throat. She pulls back, reading his face incorrectly.

“Sorry, sorry, I just thought, um. You know, since we’re the only ones left, and-”

“Please,” Five cuts her off, regaining his bearings. “Stay. Let’s stick together.”

Dolores lets out a breath that is mixed into a laugh and grins. “Guess we’re in this together now, huh?”

Five nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess we are.”


	2. Collision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just so you all know, this isn't some sort of serious fic or anything like that. it's just a fun thing i'm doing on the side, so the chapters can be short sometimes. so what? i'm enjoying myself.

Dolores says that when the world ended she was fourteen, which makes her a year older than Five, to his dismay. She's gotten comfortable around him much quicker than he can do in return. Only a day later she's talking on and on about her life before.

Five wonders how she can ignore the crushing pain in her chest that comes up whenever she thinks about her family. Or maybe it's just him that it happens to. Dolores seems fine, talking about her parents and her cousins and dog.

"His name is Mr. Pennycrumb," she says. Then a shadow crosses over her face. Quieter, she corrects herself. "Was."

Five hesitates before pressing his hand to hers. He takes it away almost as fast, but the gesture is there. She smiles at him in thanks.

"He sounds nice," Five says.

"He was. He was always so happy, even though he was lazy and stayed on his ass all the time."

Five laughs, and so does she.

"I wish he could see me now, going on like this. I hope he's happy in dog-heaven."

She laughs again, and turns to Five in confusion when he doesn't. "Was that not funny?"

Five frowns a little bit. “I don’t know. I don’t get it.”

“Well, you know, because when you’re little and a pet dies, your parents always tell you they went to heaven or whatever? Like. Dog-heaven.”

“We never had pets,” Five tells her. “And our dad would never tell us something like that.”

“Really? My parents always said cheesy stuff like that. Or, I guess it’s not really cheesy. Dead dogs, and all.”

Five shakes his dead. “He was an asshole. Our Dad."

“Oh.” Dolores quiets. “I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

She shrugs. One of her arms seems to take longer to make it up and down than the other. "You didn't deserve that."

Five snorts. "How do you know? You met me yesterday." He swallows. "Maybe I deserve worse." He doesn't believe that, not all the way. Not right now. Not. Not yet.

He knows none of the others deserved anything that Dad threw at them, but Five himself? He wonders.

She looks at him, serious and steady. He suddenly feels out of breath, like he had just jumped for an hour straight and is only now catching air. He doesn't know if that's a bad thing, right now.

Her hand is on his again. They seem to have a recurring theme going. Hands on hands. Five breathes the air and tries not to choke.

"I just do," she tells him. "You didn't deserve it." Apparently she picked up on his change to present-tense because she adds, "You don't deserve it."

Five stares at her. This might be the nicest thing anybody outside of his siblings has ever said to him. She doesn't meet his eye, determinedly focusing on the ground. 

"...Thank you," he says.

"You're welcome."

Five turns his palm so it's touching hers, and wraps his fingers around her hand. Squeezes once, carefully. She squeezes back.

Tonight, like every night, the sun sets and they’re plunged into ashy darkness. Together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dolores has mr. pennycrumb instead of five because i couldn't NOT have him in this fic. don't worry though, i'm planning on having them meet.

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is [@seven-misfits](https://seven-misfits.tumblr.com/) so if you want to rant about Dolores in my asks/messages there, feel free. Drop a line! Comments feed me, and I'd love to know what you think about this.


End file.
